As a climber, I wish this were less widely publicized. Free soloing is extremely dangerous, and dozens of climbers - including experienced ones die doing it every year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing has a list of free solo climbers. A large number of them have died.
Paul Preuss (October 3, 1913) died during an attempt to make the first ascent of the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel free solo, fell a thousand feet
[1] - https://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+to+fall+1000ft
Just makes the horrifying fall even longer!
> free solo climbing will kill you one day
> [...] [Wikipedia] has a list of free solo
> climbers.
Listen... soloing is obviously very dangerous. Nobody who is out there soloing as a pastime is unaware of this. But comparing soloing to trying to jump gorges on rocket slides isn't doing justice to a complicated and nuanced subject.
Soloing is a personal decision. And it is usually carefully made. People who solo regularly are usually not adrenaline junkies. They're not thrill seekers. They're careful and methodical and prepared. They have probably solo down-climbed more total mileage than you can imagine.
Calling Alex a special person is fair and appropriate. But he's not a daredevil.
If free soloing is not usually thrilling, or adrenaline inducing, but something you approach with care, methods, and preparation... what's the point of the induced-risk? Why not take on a similar challenge that's more difficult, minus the non-trivial probability of dead, like most other climbers do?
Gamers find themselves introducing more and more arbitrary challenges to make their accomplishments more difficult to achieve. The difference between gamers and free soloers, is that when gamers fail, they don't destroy, to various extents, the lives of all the people that loved and supported them as a side-effect of their failure, all because they thought it was a good idea to introduce deadly activities into their lives.
How is this not daredevil behavior?
> “It would be so easy for you—you know you wont fall on 5.12,”
In essence, he is so good at climbing, this is like going up a really long ladder for the average human. Sure, rungs on the ladder could break, but even I could climb a ladder 3000ft tall with enough endurance training and not fall. At least, most likely not fall.
To answer your question about the thrill, in multiple interviews, he says that free soloing is the "ultimate test". Akin to closed book and no calculators. Can you really claim that you've mastered a subject if you were allowed to use aids? This is the way he views free soloing.
When you view it like this and reduce the chances of dying to be less than driving on the freeway, I think it is less daredevil behaviour and more the ultimate passion for his craft.
downvoter: justify yourself. Do you object to making the calculation this way, or what?
Question: do you still free solo? My impression is that there are plenty of ex-free soloists who are still alive (Peter Croft being one of the most notable). I suppose Croft still does some ropeless stuff high in the Sierras, but he seems to stick to a rope when doing more technical climbs. There are, however, fewer older free soloists who still solo at or close to their limits.
You are spot-on about the soloists attitude, however. The NPR article leaves out the fact that Honnold attempted the solo previously, but downclimbed because conditions were right.
Why solo, then?
John Gill, alive at 80
Peter Croft, alive at 60
Alain Robert, alive at 54
Catherine Destiville, alive at 53
Steph Davis, alive at 43
Alex Honnold, alive at 31
Dan Osmond, died at 45, not free soloing
Dean Potter, died at 43, not free soloing
Michael Reardon, died at 43, not free soloing
John Bachar died free soloing at 52
It's a very small field, not many people make a discipline of it.
But serious question : of the four top people alive, any data on when they stopped climbing ? I would guess that would correlate with longevity.
I also recall reading somewhere that a disproportionate number of elite scientists and researchers in the 1930's - 60's were mountain climbers.
The park service allows all kinds of activities that cater to motorized tourists, but bans specialized activities like base jumping. Yosemite is one of the best places in the world to base jump, not just because of its beauty but because the cliffs are oriented well for base jumping. The ban pushes jumpers to fly at dawn or dusk, and hide their activities, in a way that pushes the safety margins.
The correct response to the ban is to respect the parks wishes and stop BASE jumping.
If you want to push the limits that's on you. You should know the risks and act accordingly.
This sort of entitled attitude doesn't help IMO. Breaking local laws just confirms that you can't trust these communities and you give everyone a bad name.
Of course they don't have to listen to me. But people express their opinions all the time.
Of course they should follow local access rules, local ethics and etiquette.
Most outdoor communities I've seen try and keep good relationships with local authorities. We want to maintain areas as much as they do so we can keep using them.
That's a weird kind of jab. As if the BASE Jumpers walked their way to the park.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bubendorfer there is no English page for him
He free solo'ed the south wall of the Aconcagua within a day in 1991.
Auer's free solo of Marmolada 'via Attraverso il Pesce' is something in the same league as Alex's Freeride.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/sports/clif-bar-drops-spo...
Personally, I do think that free soloists like Honnold to some extent damage the reputation of the sport by making it appear inaccessible and irresponsibly risky, while the reality for sport climbers is that the sport is really fairly safe with proper training and equipment.
Not trying to make this an attack either, I just see a lot of parallels elsewhere in other sports -- and it seems a little hypocritical to me that the climbing community would even be divided over this.
Furthermore, sticking with the BC skiing example, many people (resort skiers) would see it as irresponsibly risky. But we know that BC skiers take all the preparations they can, from monitoring avalanche reports and forecasts, taking training classes, learning how to probe and escape avalanches with partners. Similarly, Alex very much spends a lot of time preparing for his free-solos, in all aspects of planning -- which makes it much more calculated then "irresponsibly" risky to me.
Obviously, people are free to do risky activities, if they and their families and friends are the only ones who will suffer the consequences. Things get a lot messier when money is riding on the line, though - see concerns about Everest sherpas, free solo sponsorships, ski resorts advertising their backcountry...
Honnold's solo of El Cap is arguably the greatest outdoor sports feat ever. Of course it's going to be publicised.
Couldn't disagree more with this mindset.
Honnold climbs without a rope because he can afford to do so. He may well one day lose his life, but he knows it, and puts much more care in preparing and then stays concentrated on his climbs than most people do when driving a car.
I encourage you to read articles about him, they should help give you some perspective.
Here are more details about this climb and his preparation: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/features/athlete...
It gets interesting when you look at the population overlap: more free soloists seem to die BASE jumping than free soloing. That says little about the "per unit" risk, because people can do so many more BASE jumps per year than reasonably prepared free solos. Risk mitigation for BASE jumping tops out pretty fast, risk mitigation for free solo otoh is an iterative process. They probably declare preparation done when they think that having a very rare deadly accident during preparation becomes more likely than having a moderately rare deadly accident in the actual free solo. (Now an on sight free solo, that would be an entirely different story...)
How on earth do you practice it? You can practice bench pressing by pressing a small weight. You can practice boxing by sparring.
You can't just climb up to a deadly height - which isn't even very much, as people regularly die from falling out windows - and work your way up from there.
You can't just do a little batsuit jump, either. You have to be going fast for the suit to make a difference.
Most free solo climbers climb with a rope for the majority of their climbs, although exceptions like Paul Preuss exist. They often rehearse free solo projects many times on rope before going free solo, although there a notable cases of 'onsight' free solos like Hansjörg Auer's 'Weg durch den Fisch'. In the case discussed here, Alex Honnold apparently climbed Freerider around a dozen times on rope and rehearsed the crux pitch many more times. He did take several falls on the route, one of them spraining his ankle last summer.
http://www.planetmountain.com/it/notizie/arrampicata/hansjor...
My ratios may be wrong, adjust to taste.
You would not want to use chalkboard chalk for climbing, as it would make holds actually slipperier.
Some climbers do carry a piece of chalkboard chalk to mark key holds, though.
I don't know much about F1 races but I guess say a fairer comparison would be doing time trials alone on the track versus actual races where you risk the collision with other drivers. The former is safer but the latter is more interesting, not just because it's more dangerous.
Maybe this video gives you a feeling for why free solo is romanticized and worshiped so much in the climbing community. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz5w7q5GHuc&t=3m25s
Unless I'm seriously missing something about the "sport" of climbing, the point is to climb. My chosen hobby of auto racing involves plenty of risk, but we don't leave our helmets at home to somehow make it more "pure".
When hiking King's Peak in Utah, my group was plodding along with backpacks for a week-long camp, with food, tents, sleeping gear, and various safety gear. We were passed by a guy in shorts with a water filter bottle who was running to the summit. We met him again many hours later on his way back, when we had not yet reached our day one base camp.
The freedom and purity of just being there with the mountain was compelling, but requires a whole different set of preparation than I have given it.
It's not just removing a helmet, or doing a daredevil risk, it's transforming the experience. Because he wasn't staying over night, he didn't need a tent or sleeping gear. He didn't need a lot of food. He didn't need a backpack to carry it all. Everything he could leave behind allowed him to move faster, improving his experience.
Sure he's skilled; sure he is strategic. What I want to know is could he do this over and over again without dying? My guess is not. His odds would probably be higher than most others' but still risky.
But in the end, if it's what he wants to do, so be it. To me it's interesting but not something I'd like to do, regardless of the risk. Spending my time climbing rock walls is just not appealing to me, even if it's out in the wilderness, which I love.